I saw your shoulder swell and pitch
Alive, your fingers, curving, turn
To summon me above that ditch
Where I lay down.
Yet as I came, you turned about
And waved to someone out of sight,
Someone you could not do without
That very night.
Who was she? for I only saw
Mellifluous berries fall from vines,
Long apple blooms depress a bough,
Clustering wines
Dripping their liquor as they hung
In spray and tendril, curling hair.
You flickered your inviting tongue
At no one there;
No one but air, garden, the hewn
Poet above his pedestal,
Lyre in the marble, song in stone,
The trees, the wall;
Unless there was, before I rose,
One of the hollow things who walk
The world in anguish, wearing clothes
Just before dark;
And you were calling out to her
Or him, whatever bodiless
Presences hollow spirits bear
Beneath their dress.
Whether I knew or did not know,
Under the misery of my skin,
What pale plunderer looted you
Outside and in,
I leaped, above the ditch of earth,
Bodily, clung my arms around
Your poising knees, and brought us both
Back to the ground,
Where we belong, if anywhere,
To hide in our own hollowed dust.
Whatever I gave, I gave no bare
Pain of a ghost.
I offered, worshipping, that sweet
Cluster of liquors caught in globes,
I burst the riches till they wet
Your tousled robes;
And though I stole from you no more
Than fireflies gain of the soft moon,
You turned to me, long, long before
The ghost was gone,
If ghost it was, or melon rind,
Or stag’s skeleton hung to dry,
Lover, or song, or only wind
Sighing your sigh.
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